Gregor Mendel

In article <l03130302b43a0aabf65a@[149.152.32.4]>,
koning at ECSUC.CTSTATEU.EDU (Ross Koning) wrote:
> At 12:53 PM -0500 10/23/99, taguebwREMOVE at wfu.edu wrote:
[snip my original message]
[snip Ross' message
>> I have not examined Mendel's extant notes and so
> on first-hand, but it is my understanding from
> reading a few biographies that other notes are
> available and indicate that he worked with other
> traits that DID fail the 3:1 ratio...he just
> didn't publish on those. Why not? I guess that
> is speculative.
[snip more of Ross' message]
Ross and other plant edder's
This is really the point, right? He didn't publish the stuff that failed
the 3:1 ratio, but is this really an "ethics violation?" That is, there is
plenty of data we generate every day in the lab that we can't explain,
some of which may be contradictory. But we don't publish this data, at
least not before we try to make some sense of it.
If Mendel had data that was confusing to him, even with his great insight,
and he did not publish it, that does not necessarily say he "chose to
ignore the data that did not agree with his predictions," as stated in the
text book I'm using.
More speculation: Maybe if people had understood the significance of his
work when he first published it, he would have been motivated to look at
the more confusing data?
Anyway, thanks to all for your input.
--
My 2 electrons,
Brian
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